I headed out there a couple of months ago, but took many diversions to sights along the way, and by the time I'd done the Heart and Soul nebulae, patch 3.0 was introduced. It sucked to be far away from all the new action and it was gonna be a long time before I returned to the bubble.

I was taking screenshots at Base Camp station in the Soul Nebula, and somehow I aggroed the station :) It blew me up and instead of respawning me there, I was was offered LHS 3447 insured, or LHS 3447 Sidewinder. Apparently this was a bug in 3.0, but I thought it was because Base Camp had no shipyard.

I'd already sold my exploration data out there, so I took my insured LHS 3447 respawn taxi to the bubble, bought a T9 with its new extra 256-ton cargo slot, and started trading (only to realise what Ironwood posted above, that I should be doing passenger missions). Maybe one day I'll go back towards the Rift!

If you find you enjoy the game, you should buy Horizons. It's a really big part of the game.

The most important thing it adds is Engineers. They are NPCs who can upgrade the modules in your ship. So for example with the base game, you could build an exploration ship that jumps 35 light years, but Engineers could bring it up to 54 light years per jump. The other big aspect of Horizons is being able to participate in the story-driven content, such as interacting with alien ruins on planets.

But if you have just started, there is no immediate need to buy Horizons. The learning curve to playing the basic game is going to consume a lot of time before you even need to think about landing anywhere other than a space station.

I wouldn't advise anyone NOT to buy Horizons. The best way to think of it is this : the base game will give you Elite. You know, the 1980's game. That's great, of course, but can you remember playing it ? Fairly limited, right ?

Get Horizons. Or don't bother with the game.

Also, the more I think on the Passenger missions thing, the more it bothers me. It's a high credit activity that will get you both high levels of Exploration AND trading ? Why do anything else ever ?

Does anyone have any experience of Combat missions ? I've been doing the CC combat missions that has slowly crept my combat rank up and I'd quite like it to go up faster ; do the missions help or should I just be grinding a haz-res ?

I'm new in ED (no DLC). Is it worth buying Ground DLC right of the bat or it doesn't add any meaningful experience?

Horizons is needed to access the Engineers which, while a bit of a grind, are very useful in improving aspects of your ship (notably jump range and thrust speed).

Other than surface stations there are both static and dynamic 'points of interest' but the interaction is, at most, typically scanning some datapoints for which someone will pay as well as surface 'mining' (shoot rock-collect rubble) which are mostly just for engineering

I headed out there a couple of months ago, but took many diversions to sights along the way, and by the time I'd done the Heart and Soul nebulae, patch 3.0 was introduced. It sucked to be far away from all the new action and it was gonna be a long time before I returned to the bubble.

I was taking screenshots at Base Camp station in the Soul Nebula, and somehow I aggroed the station :) It blew me up and instead of respawning me there, I was was offered LHS 3447 insured, or LHS 3447 Sidewinder. Apparently this was a bug in 3.0, but I thought it was because Base Camp had no shipyard.

I'd already sold my exploration data out there, so I took my insured LHS 3447 respawn taxi to the bubble, bought a T9 with its new extra 256-ton cargo slot, and started trading (only to realise what Ironwood posted above, that I should be doing passenger missions). Maybe one day I'll go back towards the Rift!

I made it to the Zurara megaship a couple of days ago..... and then promptly boosted into it several times while taking screenshots (this was done on xbox which uses the boost button in a combo to access the camera suite) so I'm currently headed back to Heart Nebula (did Soul on the way out) for repairs - not sure if I'll go back to Zurara and head further or return to the bubble afterwards (unlocked Palin on the way out).

I can't stop carry boom reports - WoW has schooled me to max out everything. Now, I find out how easy is to get credits in High RES. I'm fetching million by million. Just can't stop, just like 10years ago in WoW or EvE.

Long story short, despite knowing about the obvious ones there, the actual toolsets he recommends got installed and I had a look at them. Not going to bore you with all the details, but I will say that running EDDiscovery was fascinating. It basically took all my logs for the last 2 years and showed me my entire and complete journey in Elite, including some nice maps about where I'd been and how I'd been getting on.

It was also really, really fucking useful to find out which stations I'd maxed some Rep with, as this was information I was dying to know, didn't have the meat memory TO know and was useful for various things.

I can't think of a guide that has it all, but remember to take BOTH an Advanced Discovery Scanner and a Detailed Surface Scanner.

They are used separately. You use the ADS when you arrive in a system, to find out which objects are in the system. The DSS automatically begins scanning a targeted object when you have flown close enough to it. You get more money when you've used a DSS on an object.

Reducing mass in your ship means more jump range. That means D-rated components wherever possible (obviously not your FSD!), nothing you don't need (e.g. don't take weapons), freely taking things that have no mass (even a docking computer for your safe return landing, if you have a spare slot) and engineering for low mass (if you bought Horizons).

Basically, Universal Cartographics (you can sell exploration data to them at most stations) will pay highest for earth-like worlds (ELWs), water worlds (WWs), and terraformable worlds which can include water worlds or high metal content worlds (HMCs). Don't die before you sell to Universal Cartographics, or you'll lose all your exploration data. If possible, divide the sale between stations/factions that you want to become allied with.

Also, space is stupidly big. Don't be too ambitious on your first exploration trip. Pick something a couple of thousand LY away from the bubble and come back when you've done that. By then, you'll have a good idea of whether or not you like exploration.

Also, don't fly straight there and back, because you might not find any unvisited systems. Do a bunch of jumps up or down from the direct route before you start and aim below/above your ultimate destination when plotting a route, and you'll have more chance of finding systems nobody has visited before. Selling the data on those systems is how you get your name on them permanently.

I'd argue against double AFMU on a relatively small initial exploration trip. One AFMU is fine. Especially on a Diamondback Explorer where you need room for other stuff.

AFMU weighs nothing, so take B class as it has more integrity (hit points) than A rated, and if you have Horizons you can synthesise a refill for your AFMU by gathering the required materials on planet surfaces.

AFMU can't repair your hull, so it doesn't make up for the lack of shields (I take the lowest possible grade of D rated shield that the ship can use, engineered for low power use... Useless in a fight, but prevents those minor landing bumps and scrapes). It's fine to explore without shields though.

I'd recommend against a "No Shield" build for a first time explorer. Planetary landings are hard and without a shield every landing poses the risk of hull damage. Take a D-rated shield and engineer it for lower mass if possible.

An SRV on an explorer is a must because you WILL want to land at one point, even if it's only to get some more materials to synthesise stuff. You can't imagine the chuckling from the Fuel Rats when you're stranded next to a planet that could have improved your jump range, but you don't have an SRV.

Also, it really cuts down on the boredom and gets you used to both landing on planets and using an SRV which you will use a STUPID amount if you ever want to engineer EVER.

Putting your name on something is easy as all hell ; even when I recently did that 5k trip for Palin, I found no less than 13 unexplored systems ; hell there are even more 'shareable' ones, since most people don't scan everything. Pick a direction and go - I can personally recommend the Coal Sack Nebula, both because I know there's unexplored there as well as the fact that you might run into systems named after me.

As to dying from heat, yes, it happens. Mostly when you run into a Neutron Star for the first time, have zero clue what the fuck it is and hit it's incredibly wide edge. This is also why we recommend a Heat Sink on an explorer. You just never know when you might run into one of those bloody stars or, worse, into 3 stars clustered together with no way out but through !